Vivid Verb Graffiti Wall

Thanks to Mrs. E, we have a very cute graffiti wall full of words that we can use instead of bo-ring words!  Some of my students designed the "brick wall" but tracing over our tile floor.  The new put the words up!

Karate chopped!  Pretty vivid...way better than chopped or cut up.

Very colorful yelped...instead of shouted.

I really like this one!  Completed instead of done.  How many times a day do I hear, "I'm done!"  How about, "My work's completed!"?

Our Very First Mystery Reader!

This is once again a Beth Newingham idea!  Family members were asked to sign up to come read in the classroom.  Tyler's uncle sent in some hints about who he might be and my kids tried to determine who was coming in.  I want to get some of the school's staff to do this for me too!  It was a lot of fun.  The book that Tyler's uncle read is called Salt in His Shoes about a young Michael Jordan and how he was not happy with not being taller.  His mother told him that he could put salt in his shoes and that would help him grow more quickly.  I love this book and it was nice to hear a male read it to the kids.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/salt-in-his-shoes-deloris-jordan/1102255161?ean=9780689834196&itm=1&usri=salt%2bin%2bhis%2bshoes%2bmichael%2bjordan%2bin%2bpursuit%2bof%2ba%2bdream

What's Been Going on in 4th Grade Isla Jamestown!

So much going on that it is hard to get to do the fun things I enjoy like searching blogs, pinteresting, and face book!  This weekend I hope to get caught up enough that life gets sort of back to normal!  Since I have been a fourth grade teacher, we have done quite a bit of work in the classroom.  I am sharing some pictures of some of the fun activities that we have been doing.  Most of them I found while surfing through blogs and the web in general.  Not sure where some of them came from because I would find something interesting and just save it to use (hopefully) later.  I would love to give the credit where credit is due...if any of these is your idea, please let me know.

This is a Beth Newingham idea!  I love her and ALL of her ideas.  We are waiting for postcards from everywhere!  Mrs. Newingham's website

This is a CRISS strategy.  A missing person's poster to help with inferring character traits.

We read The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and wrote about the things we were ok at and the things we were fabulous at.

I love Jack Prelutsky...we read Green Giant to get an idea about developing a mind movie when we do our own writing.  The kids kept their eyes closed while I read the poem aloud and then drew what they saw in their minds.  

To practice writing with details, we picked the favorite part of our favorite birthday ever and wrote with details to describe that one favorite part!  This was a wonderful idea from my new teammates!

This is one of my favorites!

I love this one!  This student's favorite part of her favorite birthday was the ring that her dad got for her!